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PROMISE
Raél Jero Salley
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No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted,
in any form or by any means, without prior permission
from the publisher or copyright holder.
© Text contributors, images Raél Jero Salley.
Originally published in South Africa in 2015 by University of
Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art & ACTSA Publishing
31 – 37 Orange Street
Gardens, 8001
Cape Town
ISBN 978-0-620-65792-1
Design and layout by Niek de Greef
Images photographed by Moeneeb Dalwai
Xhosa translation by Unathi Kondile
Editing by Lauren Hermanus
Printed by Castle Graphics
www.actsapublishing.com
Contents
Preface1
Raél Jero Salley
Museums and Social Justice: Exploring Museum Education
at Iziko Museums of South Africa
7
Wayne Alexander
Well-Suited13
Zethu Matebeni
Spillages, Slippages, Overflows: Some thoughts on the body,
memory, national symbols and heritage in contemporary South Africa
21
Jay Pather
On Showing Promise
49
Raél Jero Salley
Acknowledgements61
Author biographies
65
Preface
Raél Jero Salley, in association with the University of Cape Town’s Africa
Month and hosted by Iziko Museums of South Africa and its Education
and Public Programmes presents the contemporary art exhibition
Promise. The exhibition presents new artworks that draw from past
and present events in South Africa’s visual archive. Promise was first
exhibited at the Iziko South African National Gallery Annexe from 22 May
until 21 June 2013.
Promise conveys the rich history and cultural heritage of Southern
Africa. Salley presents a group of pictures that imagine everyday life—
past and present—with a mixture of awe and excitement. Salley’s work
explores ways of seeing, interpreting and understanding. Promise
draws on historical archives and collections. The aim of the exhibition
is to commemorate and celebrate Black experience while provoking
dialog about the spiritual, material, intellectual, and emotional aspects of
South Africa. Seeking to challenge inherited labels, Salley’s pictures offer
moments in being and social belonging.
“Imagination is a key feature of everyday life; it shapes our visual
culture and is indispensible to social and political activity,” comments
Salley. Through a new series of pictures, the artist seeks to produce
moments in which viewers may actively imagine and produce new
visions. Unlike other art events, this exhibition concept offers an urbane
lifestyle experience.
Raél Jero Salley is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town
and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
He is an artist, scholar, visual theorist and writer, exhibits artwork
internationally and curates exhibitions. Salley earned a Masters in Fine
Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a Doctorate in
History from the University of Chicago. He is Founding Director of ‘the
names we give’ public programmes and the innovative research initiative
Africana Art, Culture, Theory and Society (ACTSA). In addition to serving
as contributing editor to the Postcolonialist, he writes articles and books
chapters that have been published in The Queer Africa Reader, Kerry
James Marshall, Third Text, Social Dynamics and African Arts among other
publications.
2
uRaél Jero Salley, esebenzisana nenyanga yokubhiyoza amaAfrika
kwiDyunivesithi YaseKapa phantsi kweeMuziyam ze Iziko eMzantsi
Afrika kunye neeNkqubo zeMfundo noLuntu baniphathele umsebenzi
wobugcisa omtsha kumbonisot ogama lingu Promise. Lo mboniso
ubonisa imisebenzi yobugcisa emitsha ezekelisa ezembali ne ngoku
leziganeko kulondolozo lwezibonwayo lwase Mzantsi Afrika. Lo
msebenzi ongu Promise uzakuboniswa kwi Iziko South African National
Gallery Annexe ukusukela ngomhla wama-22 kuCanzibe ukuyotsho
kowama-21 kweyeSilimela 2013.
3
Umsebenzi ongu Promise uthutha uveza ubutyebi bembali nenkcubeko
yoMzantsi Afrika. Owakwa Salley usinika iqela lemifanekiso ecingisa
ngobomi bemihla ngemihla – mandulo nanamhlanje – nomxube
oqhiph’imibilini nemvuseleleko. Umsebenzi ka Salley uhlola iindlela
zokubona, zokutolika nokuqonda. Umsebenzi ongu Promise uboleka
kulondolozo lwembali neengqokelela. Injongo yalomboniso wezobugcisa
kukukhumbula nokudumisa amava abaNtsundu nokuxhokonxa intetho
ngezomphefumlo, ngezezixhobo, ngezengqondo nangezoluvo eMzantsi
Afrika. Ekuzameni ukucela umngeni kumagama afunyanwa ngelifa,
imifanekiso ka Salley ibonisa ubukho nokuhlala kunye nabanye.
“Amandla okuyila engqondweni yinto ebaluleke kakhulu kubomi
bemihla-ngemihla; ibumba inkcubeko yokuthelekela kwaye ayikwazi
ukohlulwa kwimicimbi yoluntu neyepolitiki,” kutsho u Salley. Ngothotho
olutsha lwemizobo yepeyinti, uzama ukuyila imizuzwana apho umbukeli
azicingela khona ekwazibonela eyakhe imibono kuyo.
Ngokungafaniyo nezinye iziganeko kwezobugcisa, ingqiqo
yalomboniso inikeza ngamava obomi basedolophini. Inkqubo yokuvulwa
izakuba nawo nomculo ka Bokani Dyer weqela labaculi be Dyertribe
elizinikezele ekonyuseleni inkcubeko nenguqulelo yaseMzantsi Afrika,
zwelonke.
uRaél Jero Salley lichule kwezobugcisa, ngumbumbi-ngcingane
kwezenkcubeko nombhali-mbali yezobugcisa. Unesidanga se BFA sakwi
The Rhode Island School of Design, nee Masters in Fine Arts zakwi The
School of the Art Institute of Chicago, kunye ne PhD yakwiDyunivesthi
yaseChicago. Umsebenzi wobugcisa kaSalley, uphando-zifundo
nezibhalo zakhe zingqalisela kwezaseAfrika nokuthi saa kwamakholwa
kwezobugcisa eAfrika, ubuNtsundu kunye nenkcubeko yokuthelekelela.
Ukwa nguye nomfundisi-ntsapho omkhulu kwisikolo sezobugcisa,
iMichaelis, pha kwiDyunivesithi yaseKapa. Ikhasi lomnatha:
www.raelsalley.com.
4
Man Looking, 2013. 60x100cm
6
Museums and Social
Justice: Exploring
Museum Education
at Iziko Museums of
South Africa
Wayne Alexander
While museums are perceived as sites of thinking and learning – sites for
social reconstruction – they may also be viewed as sites for the reproduction of broader social imbalances like social inequalities. This tension has
concerned many and I have therefore located this paper within such a
discourse, cognizant of the broader socio-political and cultural landscape.
Museums exist within the broad context of local, national and international
developments mindful of our responsibilities as ‘agents for social change’
and aware of contemporary issues that confront society.
Framing museums within critical thinking is about empowering the powerless and transforming existing social inequalities and injustice. The critical
theory paradigm – as purported by (Giroux, 1988; McLaren, 1989) – attempts
to provide professionals with a better means of understanding the contributions learning institutions such as museums offer with regard to the
perceptions of, for example, culture, race, class, disability, language and
gender division. If museums are serious about transforming, their challenge
remains to work towards all visitors feeling included and empowered in the
process of thinking and learning, critical about what includes or excludes
people from the broader museum experience.
At another level, critical theory offers the conceptual space for a social
justice approach to museums that encourages diversity. In this regard, a
humanizing pedagogy is to be grounded in the diversity of everyday life and
must interrogate the human experience in the context of power, privilege
and oppression to provoke action toward humanization and liberation
(Freire, 1972, Keet et al., 2009).The approach is aimed at preparing people
8
from both the oppressed and the oppressor groups to become analytical
and critical about their life circumstances and the social power relationships
and stratifications which keep them oppressed or privileged at the expense
of others.
Museums need to be sensitive to the ways in which dominance operates
in society – often by excluding people from experiencing a full human life –
and consciously display exhibitions and offer programmes which address
and challenge contradictions, deal with contestations while also raising
wider questions of access, status and power. It may be argued that through
intergenerational dialogue, museum spaces may be used to talk about
issues which keep people apart.
So, against this backdrop, I reflect on the exhibition Promise: Art,
Culture and South Africa. The purpose of the exhibition was to showcase
the work of the artist, Raél Salley as a means of creating more dialogue
amongst South Africans. The exhibition consisted of painted images which
counter a perceived trend in the contemporary South African art world of
‘blackness’ as equated with poverty and the abject, as well as raise concerns
relating to the invisibility of black imagery in South African art archives. The
exhibition concept suggests a lifestyle experience, making connections
in different forms, time and space and in a way posing problems which
generate more dialogue and thought.
At a socio-political level the exhibition allowed for deeper thinking
related to issues of social justice, largely understood as being about
distributive justice. An account of social justice that focuses narrowly on
the distribution of goods however, may lose sight of the other issues which
include poverty, race, social environment, health, status and class. The
exhibition thus offered that space in a way where often neglected issues of
domination and oppression operate with the purpose of excluding people
from the recognition and social goods necessary for human flourishing. One
9
is reminded of taking the conditions necessary for living a full human life
seriously, linked to social justice. Marked as exploitation, marginalization,
powerlessness, cultural imperialism and violence, the established conditions
for promoting self-determination and self-development are so pitted against
domination and oppression. Furthermore, the authentic inclusion of a
diverse audience raised wider questions of equality, access, status and
power within museum and gallery spaces.
It has become critical that museums are cognizant of the apparent
acknowledgement of human diversity while simultaneously silencing the
issues of power relations that are intrinsically caught up in human difference.
Some further argue that it is crucial for those who were advantaged and
privileged to acknowledge that their cultural dominance was at the expense
of indigenous cultures. The issues of race, culture and language remain
challenges linked to structural inequalities, inadvertently promoted by
museums. Museums must confront social issues and work towards a culture
of inclusivity and social justice. In this regard, Museum Education takes
an active, critical thinking and interpretive approach to meaning making,
reflecting the multiple intelligences of humanity.
In South Africa, the term ‘culture’ has always been contested as it
appears to be a guise to reinforce the protected interests of certain groups
at the expense of others. This contested terrain places much tension on the
role of museums in the light of socio-political and cultural changes in South
Africa. Museums that align their role to an approach linked to social justice
are creating the conditions for all to develop skills, knowledge and critical
modes of inquiry aimed at their self-promotion. Museums are to become
sites where people envision and enact democratic life, inclusive and not
at the expense of the democratic commitments to poor and black groups.
Soudien et al (2004), challenge the liberal notion of power-sharing which is
based on discriminatory class and race practices.
10
The task of re-imagining museums as sites that serve the quest for
social justice is not really foregrounded in what museums do. However, if
we are to institute a culture of social justice, Paula Freire’s (1987) approach
to base projects on the lived experiences of people themselves holds for
museums and allows those deemed ‘other’ to reclaim their own histories
and voices (Giroux, 1997). The museum space should continue to allow us
to relentlessly strive for a strong sense of self and humanity and in different
ways, contribute to social cohesion and nation building.
Museum Education practice that is defined by social justice and inclusivity ensures that museums will consciously apply values of equity, respect
for diversity and community participation that is cognizant of the marginalized and powerless in our society. In a way, the exhibition Promise: Art,
Culture and South Africa underscored the point that re-imagined ways of
thinking about museums – characterized by raising consciousness, making
connections and being creative – remain paramount to contributing to the
everyday lives of people, while also drawing on their experiences.
Two Men, 2013. 60x100cm
11
12
Well-Suited
Zethu Matebeni
As I gazed at the painting of Two Men I remembered the bitter pleasure
of reading Can Themba’s seminal short story, The Suit, set in Sophiatown,
Johannesburg. The Suit tells a tale of Matilda, whose once-doting husband,
Philemon finds her with another man in their bed. Using the suit left behind
by Matilda’s lover, Philemon torments Matilda to her death. Rereading it
now still brought a chill, a cold reality of how love can be soul-destroying.
But perhaps it is not only love that can be destructive, but also the ways
of being human towards others.
Siphiwo Mahala, Zukiswa Warner and Makhosazana Xaba’s imaginations
and intense emotions have been completely captivated by this story –
each responding to The Suit through a rewriting. Compellingly, The Suit’s
realness positioned materiality as a place from which to think, and write.
What once brought Matilda joy, soon took her life. In the most devastating
turn of events after an elaborate Sunday party that Matilda had prepared
for guests at their home, Philemon arrived from a bar and found Matilda
“curled, as if just before she died she begged for a little love, implored
some implacable lover to cuddle her a little . . . just this once . . . just this
once more”i.
Most recently, in her award-winning and celebrated book, Running and
other stories, Makhosazana Xaba rewrote the story, as a form of “literary
revenge” to what she expressed as a “misogynistic” tale of this love
triangleii. In rewriting the story in two parts, Behind the suit and The Suit
continued: the other side, Xaba brought all three characters back to life
with a twist, where both husband and wife experience same-sex intimate
14
relations. At a time when love between Africans of the same sex is silenced
and considered uncultural, Xaba delivers a liberatory text that transcends
rigid norms on gender and sexuality. Most interestingly, the reader is
enticed to let their imagination go wild with Philemon and his journalist.
It is Xaba’s revolutionary act of prioritizing affect in same-sex relationships that excited me when I saw Raél Jero Salley’s painting titled Two
Men. The ‘queer gaze’ is a daring thing. Its ra(gay)dar is ungovernable. The
intimate pose between the two men in the painting seemed very familiar.
Without the possibility of threat or harassment in their presence, as suggested by the pose, Two Men evoked another photograph, Kgompi and
Charles January (2007), by visual activist Zanele Muholi.iii In this portrait
taken at Kgompi and Charles’ home, intimacy between two black men becomes real and material. Sitting closely to each other, Hompi’s left hand
rests on Charles’ naked torso. Charles’s right arm lazily flows on Hompi’s
crossed legs.
Hompi and Charles’s bold love had been a matter of public consumption
elsewhere much earlier. Many years before the Civil Union Act was even
conceptualized as a reality in South Africa, on the 13th day of the month
of their surname in 2002, the Januaries took the bold step of walking
down KwaThema’s streets, hand-in-hand in their wedding outfits.iv Hompi
wore a white wedding gown and Charles donned in a blue-greyish suit.
Their act of public love defied all cultural codes. Hompi was the bride.
His mother had not liked the idea, but she eventually reconsidered when
Charles paid lobola.
Resuscitated through the imaginative portrayal of Salley’s Two Men
– which is based on a found archival photograph – love between black
men, as literally portrayed by Hompi and Charles is often publicly unseen,
barely written, and rendered materially irrelevant. It is in the documentary
My Son the Bride that the relationship between Hompi and Charles is
15
defined in terms of who wears what. Charles’ suit, as Hompi’s bridal gown,
signifies a material bond surpassing public policing of same-sex desire.
For Charles, the wedding suit performs the ‘gift’ of manhood. Among other
men, he can also talk of his bride. Similarly, Hompi fulfills the cultural
expectations of any bride. Theirs is a wedding that suits everyone.
At another time and place my encounter with the suit was set in a
Pretoria Central Prison cell. In September 2007 GALA (Gay and Lesbian
Memory in Action) published one of the most exciting reads from their
extensive archive. A careful selection of many prison letters from antiapartheid, gay rights and AIDS activist Simon Tseko Nkoli to his then partner
Roy Shepherd, presented a gripping and intimate narrative of the Delmas
Treason Trial of 1985-1989.v Simon, a young man in his thirties, together
with 21 other people, was charged with high treason. They were all later
acquitted. His loving letters to Roy told of everyday life in prison, Simon’s
preoccupations and his desires. He missed Roy, terribly. Amongst other
things, Simon was particularly concerned about his wardrobe, or the lack
thereof.
His wishes and desires contained, among others, details of clothing
items: “summer pajamas, the short ones; morning slippers and a long gown
– a gown of many flowers, a colourful one; running shoes, size 7; a pair of
trousers and a jersey”. What intrigued me the most was his impeccable
attention to aesthetics and self presentation. Roy often fulfilled Simon’s
desires and sometimes also bought and sent unrequested clothes. Simon’s
tastes changed with time. In his earlier letters after a few months in prison,
he expressed a dislike for wearing suits. Twenty months inside jail, he
desired a “brown suit…with a yellow or pink shirt and a brownish tie”. By
the end of his second and into the third year in prison, he had been yearning
for a suit: “a sky blue Carducci suit”. In his last letter to Roy in the archives,
he still had not received the suit:
16
8 June 1987
My one and only Roy
…There is nothing I want more than a sky blue suit … You
will have to choose between the following – Christian Dior and
Carducci. If you manage to get me the sky blue suit, please Roy
get me a sky blue tie as well. If you don’t get the sky blue colour,
then purple colour will do – The colour purple – both the suit
and the tie…
Simon was released on bail shortly after this letter. It is unclear whether he
received his one most desire in prison or not. However, he was reunited
with his “beloved” and “dearest Roy”. The last letter is full of promise and
anticipation for the future. Simon poured his heart to Roy in a breathtaking
declaration of love: “you are the person that my heart chose, and your heart
chose me…you are me – we are one – … When I change my name I’ll be
Simon Nkoli Shepherd or Simon Sherperd Nkoli”.
How the suit is stitched together is not often as neat as it looks. Each
thread carries a story. The Suit outlived Matilda. The torture burdened onto
the material was unbearable, both in the house and in public. Since the
passing of the Civil Union Act in 2006, Charles could legally wed his bride
Hompi. Their marriage happily continues and Charles proudly wears the
suit in the relationship.
While researching for the 2008 exhibition Jo’burg TRACKS: Sexuality in
the City, I went through personal archives of lesbian, gay and transgender
activists in Johannesburg. One activist, Phumi Mtetwa, had a photo of
herself with Sir Ian McKellen, Nelson Mandela, and Simon Nkoli taken
at Luthuli House in 1995. This was three years before Simon died. I was
disappointed when I noticed that Simon was not wearing a suit (or rather
17
a jacket). It was the waiting for the promised suit that tormented me. I
wanted to see him wearing it. He did, at least, wear a blue and purple tie.
I guess both promises were fulfilled after all.
Notes
i This is the ending of the story, just before Philemon cried out “Tilly!” See Patel
Essop (1985:96)
ii See Phillippa Yaa Devilliers’s (2015) review of Makhosazana Xaba’s book Running
and other Stories.
iii The spelling of the one of the partner’s name is Kgompi in the photograph, but
in all other documents it is Hompi. I have used the latter throughout except when
referring to the photograph. For more on this portrait see the piece
“Vulnerabilities” by Deborah Posel (2007).
iv My Son the Bride (2002) by Mpumi Njinge, 26 minute documentary film directed
by Mpumi Njinge follows the couple as they prepare for the wedding.
v Shaun de Waal and Karen Martin produced this selection of letters for GALA.
18
References
Gevisser, Mark and Matebeni, Zethu (curators). (2008). Jo’burg TRACKS:
Sexuality in the City. Johannesburg: GALA (Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action).
De Waal, Shaun and Martin, Karen (eds). (2007). Till the time of Trial: The prison
letters of Simon Nkoli. Johannesburg: GALA (Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action).
Muholi, Zanele. (2007). Kgompi and Charles Januarie, Kwa-Thema, Springs.
Johannesburg: Stevenson Gallery. http://www.stevenson.info/exhibitions/muholi/
kgompi.htm
Njinge, Mpumi (director). (2002). My Son, The Bride. Video Documentary.
Johannesburg, South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Patel, Essop (ed). (1985). The World of Can Themba: Selected writings of the late
Can Themba. Braamfontein: Ravan Press.
Posel, Deborah. (2007). Vulnerabilities. In The Africa Centre Board (producer).
Spier Contemporary2007: exhibition and awards. Africa Centre, pp24-27.
Xaba, Makhosazana. (2013). Running and Other Stories. Cape Town: Modjaji
Books.
Yaa deVilliers, Phillippa. (2015). Running: review. JENdA: A Journal of Culture and
African Women Studies, 26: 157-161.
19
20
Spillages, Slippages,
Overflows: Some thoughts on
the body, memory, national
symbols and heritage in
contemporary South Africa
Jay Pather
South African society is dividing in increasingly extreme ways. Artistic
responses to the extremes have, likewise, been excessive—they have
spilled into, interrupted the flow of, and overflowed into social space. The
spillages, interruptions and overflows are the unintended consequence of
a project of reason and restraint as described by Kant, and this attitude has
characterized a great deal of work on our bodies, memories, and heritage
in South Africa in the past 20 years.
I am interested in contextualizing a space in art making that can respond
to the growing extremities, and here I hope to outline the shape of what
that space might be.
Calls to reason pervade liberal interpretations of Nelson Mandela’s
legacy, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and other national projects that include hollow and insubstantial, catch phrases such as ‘social
cohesion,’ ‘diversity,’ and so on. For example, the original Government of
National Unity touted these sort of things. The result is an imaginary South
Africa in the present, a “Lala land,” populated by a social landscape built on
gentrified fantasies about the possibilities of keeping the economic structure
of apartheid in place and continuing on living with governance structures
that are inept, historically unsuccessful, and disaffected. This imaginary is
full of absences, paradoxes, obfuscations, denials, submergences—and all
of this while expecting the people who live in an actual, day-to-day society
built on such foundational inequities to suddenly (and blindly), hold hands
while riding off into the sunset singing “We are the world.”
22
Considering the ways in which gentrified fantasies have been mapped
onto our post apartheid society has led me to think about ‘the realm of
the sublime’. In the context of contemporary South Africa, this realm may
be the sublime’s extreme. The sublime’s extreme is that which is chaotic,
actions that exceed the established frameworks of social and political life.
Examples of this include performances by the EFF party in the space of
Parliament and elsewhere; the Democratic Alliance’s tempestuous parliamentary walk outs full of affront; and an absurd yet real State of the Nation
Address. Such extremities and overflows have had much more devastating
and concrete expressions through large-scale service delivery protests
and more recently, in xenophobic statements, displacements and attacks
perpetrated by extremists.
A lot of the slippage has, therefore, involved the human body. The
body features both directly and indirectly, in ways that are both actual and
symbolic. Direct and deadly attacks on individuals actually happen, but
symbols of the body are also active, such as the body’s waste. Excrement
featured in protests by township dwellers, and the throwing of excrement
as part of the #Rhodesmustfall movement signals an excess and spillage,
this time of rage and shame. These are searing examples of spillage and
overflow in extreme times.
Connecting these notions to larger tracts of the African continent, Sarah
Lincoln’s analyses of postcolonial African literature includes writings from
Ayi Kwei Armah, Ben Okri, Ngui wa Thiongo. Lincoln considers these texts
in relation to Africa’s perennial status as a “remnant” of globalization. Africa
is continually framed as a waste product, a trash heap of disposable raw
material, and a degraded offcut of imperial and colonial processes that have
greatly enriched, dignified and beautified their instigators and beneficiaries.
Lincoln describes an “excremental” vision of African authors, artists, poets and filmmakers that reflects a critical consciousness about the
23
imbalances and injustices that characterize African societies and polities
under pressure from monetized capitalism and domestic corruption. Superfluity, excess, destruction or extravagances are concepts gathered together
under the sign of “waste,” and they are central themes, and indeed formal
features, of many postcolonial African works.
So, in these extremities I see something about material reality, something about the volatile energy of disclosure, of revealing, of illuminating.
Excessive action is part of a search for an appropriate response to pressure.
The overflows match the weight, volume and gravity of blindness and silence.
Maybe the overflows are not part of a search at all, but are instead natural,
inevitable results.
The Rhodes statue at University of Cape Town is one example. The statue
itself, its material form, is as benign as any other statue in the city. But
the Rhodes statue became the active symptom of a disease, Its placement
and presence became a marker of an insidious silence, of what is not only
unspoken, but also hidden from view. It is the thing that sits on one’s neck,
or perhaps, on one’s forehead. It reminds the passing viewer of the disease
caused by ideologies of liberal economics or Kant’s disinterested sublime.
These frameworks are no longer able to contain or explain our everyday life,
and the languages of politeness and gentrification, which are the building
blocks of liberal thought, wrap up and hide the festering activity of the
colonial project as it persists by means of cultural signs and symbols that
at first glance appear harmless, inert, or impotent because, most often, they
are just objects. These observations can only begin the process, because the
signs and symbols are everywhere and permeate everything.
Questions emerge: What is it about a sign or symbol that makes it what
it is? How do signs and symbols come to wield as much power as they do?
Who is the architect of this psychological takeover? Why do these structures
make us feel the way we do?
24
What are the possibilities in destruction and re-building? If the symbol
is removed, as with the Rhodes statue, with what, if anything, is it to be
replaced? What will inform such decisions?
I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I do think if we see
the necessary task of responding to the issues as part of a larger process
of transformation, none of it is easy. Another difficult example is recent
xenophobic violence, which has shown us the social, political and cultural
work that was to be accomplished in the 1990s either simply did not happen
or was largely ineffective. Whatever promises were made then—between
Nelson Mandela and de Klerk, between Cyril Ramaphosa and Roelof Mayer—
did not happen. There were deals cut and promises made, but the work of
transformation was not carried out. We now face violence, overflow, and
spillage as the consequence.
When memory and the past are so willingly submerged and superficially
resolved, the future is rendered with all the more force and bluster—the
delivery of homes, land, jobs, racial equality, human existence for many are
always only available sometime in the future.
Most South Africans live in a liquid, mercuric, oily state of promise, a
suspended malaise, futures made sweet through politics of affirmation.
Actively resisting of the past, denying the challenge of the immediate present, the good life is affirmed as something in the future. All of this makes
everyday, lived experience a kind of unreality, a dissension, a fantasy of
human being.
This living in future time always, is particularly wearing and has some
significant themes about time and existential time that has no doubt been
picked up by several artists.
A space for interaction between art and legacies of violence and public
space still requires honest interrogation and re-imagining. Whether what we
experience is the actual turbulence of a deeply unsettled society, or simply
25
the aftershock of the catastrophes that have come before, artworks force us
to confront the need for something more integral to take root in our society.
This may begin with far more significant transformations in material power,
changes that afford all citizens the luxury of stable foundations, a ground
that will never again shift, displace and expel.
The lack of a clear narrative of material progression, of development, of
cause and effect, change that is felt in economic circumstance, a lack of any
of this, reinforces a state of stasis, something that existential playwrights
and artists have used in an expression of an absurdity of life itself. Beckett’s
Waiting for Godot dramatizes this absent future, but in South Africa, the daily
asymmetries make the absurd the material reality.
South African artists seem to be asking abiding questions in a democracy with confounding, schizophrenic lacks. In the chaos and messiness of
violence, how can the arts show the submerged processes that make fault
lines? How can art make manifest promises that, for many South Africans,
remain deeply lodged, un-nameable, unarticulated and mostly un-witnessed
pains?
Artworks show us states of being characterized by kinds of schizophrenia
and overwhelming despair. At the same time, art also allows us to hang on
to an essentially human need—the promise of a better future.
26
Queens, 2013. 180x250cm
28
Wedding, 2013. 180 x 200
30
Woman Smoking (After JT), 2013. 150x180cm
32
Kaleidoscope Dreams, 2013. 180x370cm
33
Man with Pipe, 2013. 180x200cm
36
Woman and Baby, 2013. 60x100cm
38
Boy with Hat, 2013. 60x100cm
40
Prizefighters: Johnson, 2013. 55x100cm
42
Prizefighters: Jeptha, 2013. 55x100cm
44
Prizefighters: Robinson, 2013. 55x100cm
46
On Showing
Promise
Raél Jero Salley
Promises are at the centre of an old story. Walking in the woods one day, a
princess came to a pond and sat to rest at its edge. She carried along her
favorite toy, a golden ball that she tossed into the air, catching it as it fell.
As she was tossing her beloved ball ever higher, she missed a catch, and
the ball fell into the dark water. Staring hopelessly at the water, seeing
only her own reflection, she offered to no one at all: ‘Oh no! If I could only
get my ball back, I would exchange it for all of my riches.’ An unexpected
someone peered out of the water. It was a frog that peeked out and said:
‘I do not want your riches, but if you will love me, and let me live with you
and eat from your golden plate, I will bring you your ball.’ Of course, the
princess thought this was nonsense. After all, the princess thought, ‘this
silly frog can never even get out of the spring to visit me, though he may
be able to get my ball for me, so I will promise him whatever he asks.’
Surprisingly, the frog makes good on his promise, retrieves the ball, to
the delight of the princess. Running home gleefully, the princess promptly
forgets about the frog. However, her own promise brings with it a dark
cloud that follows her home, and its fulfillment came like rain. When the
frog appears at her doorstep and she is forced to explain to her father what
happened, the father compels her to honor her word. Despite her devious
intention to the contrary, the reluctant princess is compelled by authority
to keep her promise. In due course, this performance works out very well
for the princess, because the fulfillment of her promise transforms her frog
into the prince for which her heart longs. Her begrudging compliance with
48
her verbal agreement prompts the prince to make yet another promise: he
marries her, and they live happily ever after.
This little old story surfaces a unifying thesis that threads through
the notions of promises that follow herein. Promises are premised on a
peculiar paradox. Few moral judgments are more intuitively obvious and
more widely shared than that promises ought to be kept. A promise is a
promise, precisely because of this obligation, or even more strongly, the
inevitability of the thing or action vowed, and so the promise is set apart
from other kinds of pronouncements. However, with the pronouncement
of a promise—already implying or even containing its form and its future
fulfillment, is the possibility of the promise breaking. This possibility for
rupture is also created and foretold in the same moment the promise is
uttered. Promises are acts demanding further actions and fulfillments
in ways that are seemingly intuitive. Counter intuitively, we put in place
structures, customs and laws, severe penalties and labours, to neurotically
guard against the temptation of the promisor to renege on her word.
Contained in a promise is paradoxical certainty and fragility, which
makes it the object of fascination, theory, folklore and depiction. We are
often invited to step back, to shake free from the fascinating lure of the
directly visible but ‘illusory’ promise, to look, to question, to test. Our
capacity for recalling promises in situations of despair can take on a
redemptive or even messianic character. By contrast, promises supported
by unreasonable customs or rules, lacking consideration, that is, having
neither the value nor the substance of a contract, can have terrible consequences, and despite their gravity, enact nothing more than caprice.
We all make promises and are recipients of promises. Whatever our
individual feelings on specific promises, what is undeniable is that oftentimes the role of the promise in general is that it is a sort of idea that sustains our efforts to fight hopelessness and to promote agreement. Noting
49
this, we are compelled to look again, to search for the contours of an idea
that generates illusory judgments. This is the starting point, perhaps event
the axiom of the promise exhibition, and this book.
Three aspects of the promise are addressed here: The first is a visible or
clearly articulated or performed assurance, such as a statement common in
wedding vows, e.g. ‘I promise to love you all the days of my life’. The second
is a ‘symbolic’ promise embodied in language and forms. Not explicit
pronouncements, symbolic promises are obligations so mysterious David
Hume once described them as the most ‘incomprehensible operations’
that can be imagined. Hume pointed to the ability of a certain form of
words, along with a certain intention, to change entirely the nature of an
external object. This inexplicable promissory activity is not only at work
in personal relationships, but is central to social and political life, ethical
theories and speech acts. Our habitual promissory utterances might enforce
relations of social domination in ways that reproduce forms of violence
that underlie language, actions, and imposed universes of meaning. In
this sense, a promise is a special sort of power. The third sort of promise is
what I call ‘potential’ promise, or the often-unpredictable consequences of
capacities yet to be developed. As a frog, the prince was in no position to
offer neither marriage, nor a kingdom to the princess. His future promise
was contingent upon the fulfillment of his own promise first, then of the
princess’s word second, of which he had no guarantee. The catch is that at
the moment of his bold first offer, the future cannot be perceived from the
standpoint of that present. This third sort of promise, the potential promise,
or perhaps ‘promise as potential,’ is therefore premised not on what is
presently possible, but rather on a transformation of the now ‘normal’,
accepted state of things, the present. As such, the potential promise is
held as a projection into a future, which at the moment, extrapolating from
the present, is logically impossible. The potential promise has the character
50
of a memory of a future, not yet possible. It is a counterpoint to the present,
which retains stubbornly strong legacies of the past. Potential promises,
latent in actions and utterances (like that of the bold frog) are important if
one is to make sense of what otherwise seem to be ‘irrational’ eruptions of
the symbolic—promises, protests, revolts, violent reactions to the present
as it is now—because they are oriented toward a future that (in the present)
is not yet possible.
When the Congress of the People in South Africa formally adopted
the Freedom Charter in 1955, it followed consultation with hundreds of
thousands of people about the South Africa they would like to live in. It also
called for a new order of life based on the will of the people, proclaiming
that “South Africa belongs to all who live in it, black and white,” although
the struggle for democratic government continued for another four decades.
Six decades later, I write this chapter in between daily bombardments by
media fueled social, political and economic unrest, ‘crises’ that pop up all
over South Africa and the world, resounding and reverberating with ‘no’ to
present futures. Perhaps it is worth bearing in mind that a particular crisis
only explodes into visibility as a result of complex struggles over broken
promises.
There is something in the practice of rule making and rule breaking
that seems essentially human and societal. In the structuring of society,
promising is beneficial to both groups and individuals, as it is a means for
building trust, cooperation and coordination. A promise can sustain one
through remarkable peril, and the promise of something better, less violent,
more harmonious, is precisely what is offered by the pursuit of ideals such
as democracy and equality.
Juxtaposing lofty ideals with material facts support claims about promises that ought to be kept. From such promised outcomes, the maintenance
of conventions that support them slips between being pragmatically pre-
51
Portrait (Biko), 2013. 20x30cm
52
ferred and dogmatically prescribed through moral obligation. Sometimes
it seems we keep promises because it is a good idea to keep a promise. In
other words, we maintain the good of the ideal, and too much depends on
this habitual maintenance, to tolerate the considered disruption of its path.
The obligation, being good simply because of another ‘good’ it supports, is
often soon reified as a ‘good’ in itself.
The cover story of The Guardian on 15 August 2014, for example, was
‘South Africa: two years after Marikana massacre, families still wait for
justice’. This offered documentation on how in 2012, people died when
police opened fire on striking miners, killing 34 and injuring 78. The police
cover-up was a national scandal. Reporting on events from the Marikana
commission of inquiry, the article recounted how relatives of victims spoke
of men ‘with names, faces and families’, and about ‘what they left behind,
what can’t be replaced’. The outcries and protests immediately following the
events of 2012 had quieted, and life in South Africa returned to ‘normal’, as if
the passing of time repairs the individual and collective trauma of wrongful
death by police authority.
This ‘legitimate’ use of force by the police disintegrates the promise
of democracy, while as the same time being justified by ‘the rule of law’.
As with the promise, the legitimacy is intolerant to its own disruption. The
law was used to mediate the tension between the promise of democratic
freedom, and the promise of profit. With this and other broken promises,
twenty years into its future present, South Africa re-emerges as the ‘heart
of darkness’, a geographic and imaginary site of trauma that cannot be
confronted head on but resonates beyond territorial borders on screens
and papers across the globe, cut and caricatured for mass consumption.
Do we need further proof that promises are institutional artifacts, and
thus promissory obligations are institutional obligations? As institutional
artifacts they are over-determined by political obligations, and grounded in
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the same manner as all such considerations. To wit, institutions are comprised of sets of rules that prescribe and proscribe certain behaviors for
the participants in the institution. The dicta of the rules are the contents
of moral obligations, which lead to, in a Rawlsian sense, at least two conditions on an action in order to be an institutional obligation (Rawls 1972:
112). First, the institution whose rule calls for the action must be decided
to be just. Second, the individual person must have ‘voluntarily accepted
the benefits’ of the institution. South Africa’s response to the first condition must be taken into account; by some measures it is the world’s most
unequal society. The movement of global capitalism, generating wealth
for nations, is setting even high-income countries on a new trajectory of
growing inequality. In South Africa, the opening of local markets to the
world has enabled both the creation of wealth and the deepening of institutionalized racial inequality. The jarring juxtaposition of symbols of affluence
and the abject poverty of an overwhelmingly black underclass takes on
particular characteristics in this (post)apartheid context. South Africa is
home to generations of disillusioned and angry citizens, for the electoral
cycle and its concatenation of promises are inadequate to process tensions.
Protest is often used to give voice to demands to fulfill what, since 1994, is
left still unfulfilled. Democratic freedom still lies beyond the possible, as a
potential promise. Thembisa Nkuzo, an eyewitness in Marikana, observes:
‘All that has happened under democracy is that those who once fought for
us have become rich by acting as our oppressors’.
Instead of confronting promise directly, the pictures of promise included in this volume cast sideways glances. Having stumbled upon an almost
mystifying paradox in direct address or confrontation with the problem of
the promise, a more playful or imaginative look offers a new opportunity
for understanding. Pictures, insofar as their production is (seriously) playful
and imaginative, offer a different kind of artillery for getting at promises.
54
The place and importance of imagination can be surfaced with reference to dialectical dynamics. The fundamental dynamic of any promise
lies in the dialectic of Identity and Difference to the degree to which such
a promissory act aims at imagining, and sometimes even at realizing, a
system radically different from the one at hand, of the moment (Hegel in
Jameson, 2005: xii). Our wildest imaginings are not only reflective collages
of experience. They are also often constructs made up of bits and pieces
of the here and now, traumatically overpowering us, preventing us from
thinking, or worse, dismissed altogether for being ‘unrepresentable.’ A
conceptual and artistic stance on promise might reduce the traumatic
impact and add a critical element that is intelligible.
The imaginative power of the promise, unearthed in theory, may enable
a space from which to rethink the process of history not just from the point
of view of the ‘past-then’ and/or the ‘here-now’ (or significant to South
Africa, the point of view of the colonizer), but also from the standpoint of
what is ‘absent-now’ and/or ‘future-possible’ (and the standpoint of the
experiences of those subjected to colonization in the name of history). For
this to make sense, we need distinctions—between the discernable spatial
location of what we see, and our moral feeling about it.
An appropriate approach to my subject seems to be one that permits
sideways glances. Bergson’s idea for duration seems both helpful and
significant, because Bergson offers feeling as a tool, a metric, for understanding. The feeling of sympathy, for Bergson, is a moral feeling (Bergson 1889, 2001: 18–19). Our experience of sympathy begins, according to
Bergson, with our putting ourselves in the place of others, feeling their
pain. But, if this were all, the feeling would inspire in us abhorrence of
others, and we would want to avoid them, not help them. We noticed a
similar relation between the frog and the princess: the frog sympathizes
throughout, through the lens of its own pain; the princess is in a position
55
of privilege, and does not (or cannot). Bergson notes the feeling of horror
may be at the root of sympathy. We realize that if we do not help this poor
wretch, it is going to turn out that, when we need help, no one will come
to our aide. Perhaps this is part of the king’s wisdom when he orders the
princess to honor her promise. There is a “need” to help the suffering, but
for Bergson, these two phases—horror and sympathy—are only “inferior
forms of pity.”
In contrast, true pity involves not so much fearing pain as desiring it.
It is as if “nature” has committed a great injustice and what we want is to
be seen as not complicit, even in opposition to it. Describing the essence
of pity as a need for self-abasement, “an aspiration downward” into pain,
Bergson describes the result of this painful aspiration is a sense of being
superior and the realization that we can do without certain sensuous goods.
We manage to dissociate ourselves from the base object, and in the end,
one feels humility. One feels humbled after being stripped of sensuous
goods. I am cautious of overstating the relevance of Bergson’s description
– the point is that there is a heterogeneity of feelings, and yet they cannot
be neatly separated, nor synthesized. Furthermore, one does not negate
the other. Duration is both continuity of progress and heterogeneity, for
Bergson. The notion is useful here because it implies a conservation of
the past in the present. One moment is added onto the old ones, and thus,
when the next moment occurs, it is added onto all the other old ones plus
the one that came immediately before.
The question, of course, is what kind of description is intended here?
It is not a realistic or naturalistic description of the situation, but rather
an analysis that produces an ‘inexistent (virtual) space of its own’. What
appears to the viewer is not an appearance sustained by a ‘depth of reality’
behind it, but a decontextualized appearance that coincides with real being
in the world.
56
My aim is to avoid a fake sense of urgency or the anti-theoretical or
anti-intellectual edge that comes with the idea of looking or acting unthinkingly. Against the urgencies of the brief moment, my critical analyses of
a promise offer little information, no clear solution, confused overlaps of
time, no practical advice, nor ‘light at the end of the tunnel’. These pictures
resist the temptation to engage directly, in favor of a sensitive, slow and
critical inquiry.
Bringing our earlier example to an ending, the king (the father of the
princess) in this example, intuitively understood a cardinal property of the
promise: whatever agreement is made ought to be kept. Or, if it is not kept,
something of similar value should be given in its stead. You may keep your
favorite toy, but it will cease to bring the desired result unless you give
something else, of equal or greater value, away. As it is passed along, the
gift may be given back, but this is not essential. In fact, the happy ending
of the story is when the promised gift turns into some new, third kind of
present. The princess’ obedience fetched her a handsome prince. The only
essential is this: the promise must be fulfilled so the momentum of the gift
continues. There are other forms of acts and property that stand still or mark
a boundary, but the gift must keep going.
Throughout this narrative, from beginning to end, happiness, in fact, is
what the sensible frog offers. The happiness moves from the golden ball to
the princess to the frog prince, to we imagine, an entire family and nation.
The rolling momentum of the gift is transferred through a promise, and
once fulfilled, the outcome is happiness ever after.
My hope is that some images of PROMISE give a glimpse of a present
past, blur the distinction between the detail in photographic media and that
of painting, and maybe offer a more important glimpse at a future present.
Perhaps these works will suggest to you, as they have to me, that when the
only truly practical thing to do is to fulfill one’s promises, doing so can—in
57
both idealistic and material ways—magically transform both our world and
us. All of this with the knowledge that if there is in fact a happily ever after,
at this moment it is incomprehensible.
Works Cited:
African National Congress (1955) Freedom Charter, http://www.anc.org.za
(1955), Freedom Charter, ANC; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Charter.
Bergson, H. (1889, 2001) Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of
Consciousness (Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience 1889) Mineola,
NY: Dover Publications.
Cohon, R., 2006, “Hume on Promises and the Peculiar Act of the Mind”, Journal of
the History of Philosophy, 44(1): 25–45.
Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm (1812, 2002) Der Froschkönig oder der eiserne
Heinrich, Kinder- und Hausmärchen, no. 1. Translated by D. L. Ashliman. Available
from: <http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm001.html>.
Habib, Allen (Spring 2014) “Promises”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Available from: <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2014/
entries/promises>.
Hume, David. A., (1739–40 [1967]) A Treatise on Human Nature, L.A. Selby-Bigge
(ed.), Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Jameson, Frederic Archaeologies of the Future: The Desire Called Utopia and
Other Science Fictions. London & New York: Verso. 2005.
Nicholson, G. 2014, ‘South Africa: two years after Marikana massacre, families
still wait for justice’, The Guardian 15 August. Available from: <http://www.
theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/15/south-africa-two-years-marikana-massacrejustice>.
Rawls, John, 1955, “Two Concepts of Rules”, Philosophical Review, 64(1): 3–32.
58
Acknowledgements
This book has benefited from so many people’s advice, insight and
support—in part because it has taken me longer to finish than I would
have liked—that I cannot possibly list them all. The project’s first steps
were taken under the auspices of research funding received from
the University of Cape Town in 2010, and developed at the Michaelis
School of Art, in the context of the University’s Africa Month founded by
Thandabantu Nhlapo. The folks at the South African National Galleries
made the project possible, special thanks to Wayne Alexander, Riason
Naidoo, Hayden Proud and Annette Laubser in Educational Programmes,
part of the IZIKO Museums of South Africa. My research into art, culture,
history and society was enabled by time at the Art Institute of Chicago
and the University of Chicago until 2009, first as a student, then as a
lecturer. The artworks and texts are inseparable from the various ideas
established in those learning and teaching occasions, moments that are,
for me, unforgettable. I’m grateful to research and production assistance
from Richard Mabula, James Macdonald, Tim Leibbrandt, Kirsten Lilford,
Abel Mputing, Simphiwe Ndzube, Jody Paulsen, Gabrielle Samson,
Anna Stielau, Joshua Williams; to expert technical support from Stanley
Amon, Kurt Campbell, Nadja Daehnke, Moeneeb Dalwai, Unathi Kondile,
Kyle Moreland, David Southwood and Jared Thorne; beyond-the-callof-duty effort from Kamey Butler; sponsorship from the effervescent
Peter Wheetman of Societi Bistro; Irma Albers, Unathi Mantshongo and
Simoné Benjamin of Distell beverages; Menzi Cele of Paddington Station
PR; for the musical genius of Bokani Dyer and Shabaka Hutchings; and
the irrepressible ebullience of Lauren Hermanus.
59
It would be impossible to give name to all of the individuals whose
suggestions have been refused, inverted, or silently appropriated
for this project. Philomena Essed and David Theo Goldberg were
extraordinarily generous with advice and encouragement—it was one
sunlit conversation with them that motivated me to take this book project
seriously. Candida Alvarez, James Elkins, Kerry James Marshall, W.J.T.
Mitchell, Stephan Palmié and Joel Snyder have stayed in my corner,
showing me more ways of looking at the world. Huey Copeland, Jean
and John Comoroff, Lewis Gordon, Fred Moten, Steven Nelson, Chris
Holmes Smith and Krista Thompson have tried to make me smarter about
cultural politics and life in general; Joost Bosland, Imraan Coovadia,
Thembinkosi Goniwe, Gail Hughes, Shose Kessi, Zethu Matebeni, Achille
Mbembe, Julie McGee, Jay Pather, Berni Searle, and Hank Willis Thomas
keep me aware of what I don’t know but what is important.
I appreciate my colleagues at the University of Cape Town and
elsewhere, and special thanks go to the students who helped me figure
this project out. Though they may be surprised to find their names here,
I have learned in various ways from Polly Alakija, Dawoud Bey, Omar
Badsha, Lerato Bereng, McArthur Binion, Ian Bourland, Lisa Brock, Sabine
Broeck, Dineo Bopape, Shauna Brown Leung, Gregory Coates, Angela
Davis, Esther De Rothschild, Mark Dion, Pam Dlungwana, John Dobard,
Darby English, Okwui Enwezor, Kate Ezra, Theaster Gates, Harry Garuba,
Raimi Gbadamosi, Khwesi Ghuele, Michael Godby, Ramón Grosfoguel,
Patricia Hayes, Hamani Henderson, Gail Hughes, Rashid Johnson,
Mwenya Kabwe, Robin D.G. Kelley, Shose Kessi, Sandra Klopper,
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Bronwyn Law-Viljoen, George Mahashe, Khanyisile Mbongwa, Santu
Mofokeng, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Zanele Muholi, Celia Murray, Gabi
Ncgobo, Steven Nelson, Nadipha Ntambo, Kwame Nimako, John Peffer,
Kymberly Pinder, Johannes Phokela, Ciraj Rasool, Ed Schad, Josh Sellers,
Penny Siopis, Nick Shepherd, Stephen Small, David Southwood, Tavares
Strachan, Sherod Thaxton, Jill Trappler, Kemang Wa Lehulere. Special
thanks are due for the inspiration, encouragement and excellence of two
friends who have joined the ancestors: Colin Richards and Unathi Sigenu.
It is my remarkable good fortune to learn and grow with George Gibbs,
Tanya Tyler and the Salley family: Mazie and Pamela, Jerry and John, Ron
and Will, who have always and already, been there.
Raél Salley with Queens,
South African National Gallery, Cape Town 2013.
62
Author biographies
WAYNE ALEXANDER grew up on the Cape Flats and is currently Director
of Education and Public Programmes (EPP) at IZIKO Museums of South
Africa after being in the field of education for over 20 years. Alexander
has a PhD in Education and a Higher Education Teachers Diploma. He is
married with two sons. Email: [email protected].
ZETHU MATEBENI received a PhD at WISER, Wits University and has
wide research interests and publications on queer issues, sexuality,
gender, race, HIV and AIDS, African film and cinema and popular culture.
Matebeni was Visiting Assistant Researcher at Yale University and
has received research fellowships from Ford Foundation, the Fogarty
International Centre and the National Research Foundation. Matebeni
curates exhibitions and is an activist and documentary film-maker.
Matebeni’s first co-production was Breaking Out of the Box: Stories of
Black Lesbians (40mins, 2011). Email: [email protected].
JAY PATHER is Associate Professor in Drama at the University of Cape
Town, Director of the Gordon Institute for Performing and Creative Arts
and Artistic Director of Siwela Sonke. A Fulbright Scholar, Pather read
for an MA in Dance Theatre at New York University. Pather’s work has
traveled widely, extending across disciplines, sites and cultures. Since
1984, Pather has collaborated with visual artists, architects and urban
planners to take performances into public spaces.
Website: http://www.gipca.uct.ac.za/jay-pather.
63
RAÉL JERO SALLEY is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town
and Visiting Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Salley
earned a Masters in Fine Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago
and a Doctorate in the History of Culture from the University of Chicago.
Salley works as an artist, curator, and scholar and is Founding Director of
‘the names we give’ public forum, the Africana Art, Culture, Theory and
Society research initiative and ACTSA Publishing Group, in addition to
publishing in journals and books. Website: www.raelsalley.com.
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